6. Practically: The need of cleanliness is a weakness.
According to the orthodox standards, this house of Tony's is by no means so clean as the rose-embowered cottage of romance. It was not hygienically built. The children gain health by grubbing about outside, then come in house and demonstrate their healthy appetite by grabbing. I could wish at times that they were a little more conscious of their noses. We cannot, try how we will, get wholly rid of fleas, because fleas flourish in beaches, boats and nets. There are several things here to turn one's gorge, until prejudices are put aside and the matter regarded scientifically. For, as one may see, the effective cleanliness of this household strikes a subtle balance between more contending needs than can be fully traced out. If, for instance, Mrs Widger came down earlier and scrupulously swept the house, her temper would suffer later on in the day. If she did not sometimes 'let things rip,' and take leisure, her health, and with it the whole delicate organisation of the household, would go wrong. Of a morning, I observe she has neck-shadows. Horrid! Perhaps, but being a wise woman, pressed always for time, she postpones her proper wash until the dirty work is done. Were we to kill off the wauling cats which make such a mess of the garden, the neighbourhood would lose its best garbingers. Baked dinner is never so tasty as when the tin, hot from the oven, is placed upon a folded newspaper on the table. Tony and the children tear fish apart with their fingers. It does not look nice, but that is the reason why they never get bones in their throats, for, as a fish-eating instrument, sensitive fingers are much superior to cutlery and plate, and so on....
I used to think that I was pigging it here. Now I do not.[12]
16
JIMMY COMES HOOKING
The dawns are later now. We do not need to get up quite so early, and usually, just as we are drinking our cup o' tay, we hear a pattering of naked feet on the staircase. Jimmy, the Dustman still in his eyes, appears at the door. He has an air of being about to do something important. He picks out his stockings and old grey suit from the corners where they were left to dry. He does not ask to have his boots laced up nor complain of their stiffness. Then with his coat exceedingly askew on his shoulders, he demands: "Tay! please."
"What do yu want? Git up over to bed again."
"I be comin' hooking wiv yu."
"Be 'ee? Yu'll hae to hurry up then."
When the sea is not too loppy nor the wind too cold, Jimmy goes with us. The soft-mouthed mackerel need hauling up clear of the gunwale with a long-armed swing, beyond Jimmy's power to give, and therefore as a rule he is not at first allowed to have a line; for fish represent money and mackerel caught now will be eaten as bread and dripping in the winter. Jimmy sits huddled up on the lee side for'ard. He becomes paler, looks plaintively, and sighs a big sigh or two.